Saturday, August 3, 2013

Whether
Forecast:
In a vague, hand-waving forecast worthy of the new girl at WKRP, The
US claims it has excellent intelligence indicating that someone may
do something sometime soon. Be afraid, be afraid. Whose
Recovery? Who Recovered?In 2007 the unemployment rate was
4.7% and the employment rate (the employment-to-population ratio)
was 63.3%. Today unemployment is purportedly
7.4% and the employment rate a lowly 58.7%. Let's celebrate!

Opportunity:
After the criminal enterprise called Enron collapsed, the government
allowed Wall Street to replace it in the energy industry. And it
did. JPMorgan engaged in bid rigging, Barclays "totally fukked"
with the energy market in the Southwest, Deutsche Bank manipulated
electricity flows to increase profits. Remember when bankers were
just greedy, not criminals?

Filibuster
Done Right: In Taiwan
they don't stand around in cute sneakers jabbering away for hours,
nor do they simply mail in their objections by saying they are going
to filibuster. Nope. In Taiwan they wrestle each other, put the
opposition in headlocks and scramble to possess - by physical prowess
- the president's pulpit. A different form of winner take all.

Table
Of Contents: The CO2 we've
already put into the atmosphere is enough to guarantee that Galveston
and more than a dozen other coastal towns in Texas are certain to
lose land to rising sea levels. Ditto for Florida, Mississippi,
Alabama and so on. That's in the box; we're
working on more.Prelude:
US is characterizing the overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi as
“restoring democracy”, rather than “military coup" so it
can keep sending military supplies and money to the junta. Those who
'restored democracy' are preparing to give another series of
citizenship
lessons to the Muslim Brotherhood. The
Big Four Oh! Those
stalwart guardians of all that is right and holy have once more - for
the 40th time - voted to repeal Obamacare. They were going to do
something about stimulating the economy, but ran out of gumption.
Oops, here's their plan: Reduce
Food Stamp funding by 5% and make it impossible for Congress to
pass any law that would improve working conditions – things like
workplace safety, minimum wage, child labor laws, overtime pay and
other governmental interference with the free market. And they also
plan to permanently prevent Obama
from filling the three vacant seats on the DC Circuit Court of
Appeals. The
American Experience:
If Steve Jobs was so brilliant, how come Bill Gates' Microsoft rules
the world? Perhaps good fortune, random chance and a bit of
quasi-legal shenanigans trump building better mousetraps. It is
better to be good at making money than at making things.

Present:
Of the 166 prisoners remaining at Guantánamo, only 22 are
considered "chargeable," never mind convictable. Fell
safer now? And proud?

Paraphrased:
Republican leaders are about to reap the whirlwind, because they
haven’t had the courage to tell the base that Obamacare is here to
stay, that the sequester is in fact intolerable, and that they have
lost the war over the shape of American society. As a result, we’re
looking at a high probability of government shutdowns and even debt
defaults. One of America’s two major political parties has gone off
the deep end.

Our Motto

Keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.